Governor says no to Ag Gag bill

NASHVILLE – Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam released the following statement regarding HB 1191/SB 1248:

“Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Tennessee.  Farmers play a vital role in our state’s economy, heritage and history.  I understand their concerns about large scale attacks on their livelihoods.  I also appreciate that the types of recordings this bill targets may be obtained at times under false pretenses, which I think is wrong,” Haslam said. 

“Our office has spent a great deal of time considering this legislation.  We’ve had a lot of input from people on all sides of the issue.  After careful consideration, I am going to veto the legislation.  Some vetoes are made solely on policy grounds.  Other vetoes may be the result of wanting the General Assembly to reconsider the legislation for a number of reasons.  My veto here is more along the lines of the latter.  I have a number of concerns.

“First, the Attorney General says the law is constitutionally suspect.  Second, it appears to repeal parts of Tennessee’s Shield Law without saying so.  If that is the case, it should say so.  Third, there are concerns from some district attorneys that the act actually makes it more difficult to prosecute animal cruelty cases, which would be an unintended consequence. 

“For these reasons, I am vetoing HB1191/SB1248, and I respectfully encourage the General Assembly to reconsider this issue.”

The Tennessee Press Association is applauding the state’s newspapers for coverage of the controversial bill, strong editorials in opposition and lobbying efforts leading up to the governor’s decision. 

Police scanners are transparency issue

Across the nation, reporters are struggling with the encryption of police scanners. While reporters struggle everyday to keep the public informed, officials find ways to to conceal information.

Journalist Justin Glawe writes, “ While police exist to protect the public from criminals, journalists, among other things, act as a check against law enforcement.

Journalist Kelsey Cochran writes, “Encrypting police radios leaves the fox watching the hen house in one of the worst ways imaginable.

“I hold a certain level of trust in the police I work with every day. They haven’t given me a reason not to trust them. At least, not yet. But that doesn’t mean I should have to rely on them to tell me what is news.

“Just as I’m not a trained law enforcement officer, they are not journalists. Their job is to protect their investigations. My job is to tell the story. How do I know they’re telling me everything I need to know?

“What many of them do not understand is that the information contained in police reports, etc. does not belong to them. It belongs to the citizens, and it belongs to the victims. It belongs to the people who want to know what’s happening in their neighborhoods, not the police.”

Glawe and Cochran are joined by other top journalists across the nation in the important conversation.

What are your experiences? What do you have to contribute?

Join the conversation at:
http://fightencryption.tumblr.com/

SUNSHINE WEEK: Transparency is three-legged stool

By David T. Thompson / Executive Director Kentucky Press Association

My mom used to have a small, three-legged wooden stool. I don’t remember the stool being used for any reason, just something to set a newspaper or magazine on for a minute. It was small and thus not sturdy enough to hold anything of weight. But no matter if it was strong and sturdy, the three-legged stool was no good if something happened to one of the legs. It couldn’t stand on just two. You’re probably already wondering what a three-legged stool has to do with the newspaper business.

Open government is a three-legged stool.

It takes open meetings.

It takes open records.

It takes public notices.

Any of the three being absent you don’t really have open government.

I would wager that the news side of newspapers thinks all of government can be “open” if just its meetings and records are kept public. And I would wager an equal amount that the advertising/business side would argue without public notices, government really can’t be open. Like the old Certs breath mint ad, “Stop. You’re both right.” It takes all three. Together. If one of the three is missing, any one of the three, open government is off-balance.

Open meetings: lots can go on behind closed doors and lots does. The law gives public agencies the right to enter into closed meetings under certain conditions. The law limits the presence of people at those meetings and nothing can be finalized. Any final action must be done in public. Open meetings also gives the citizens the right to speak on a particular subject. Much like lobbying in some respect but the comments play an important part of a public agency’s decisions on most items.

Open records: much like open meetings, most records are open. Those records can be closed under certain conditions but the records are important for a variety of reasons. Often, those records will reveal what has happened behind the scenes, with agencies trying to restrict knowledge of what has happened in certain situations. Maybe it’s a financial settlement with a fired public agency employee. Maybe it’s what happened in a court proceeding. Maybe it’s just simple communications between agencies. Open records are much more than that, I know, but open records are an important part of that three-legged stool.

Public notices: these probably get overlooked when compared to open meetings and open records. Editorial departments won’t understand the reason for them, why government agencies should pay to have information published. Advertising departments will favor this one over open meetings and open records. Those are good but with public notices certain information has to be published and that information could be very revealing. On their own, each is important and each plays a role in open government — government of the people, for the people and by the people. True open government can only be open with the three-legged stool in perfect balance.

Lawmakers back loosening of sunshine laws

Lawmakers back loosening of sunshine laws

Josh Adams, of The Tennessean, is reporting that Williamson County Commissioner Bob Barnwell is once again going after the state’s sunshine laws in an attempt to “give city and county board members greater flexibility” regarding open public meetings. Adams reports that the measures is “a move critics denounce as an affront to government transparency.” Barnwell made a similar attempt in 2011 but failed. 

For the full report see the article in The Tennessean at: 

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130307/WILLIAMSON/303070104/Lawmakers-back-Williamson-commissioner-s-push-loosen-sunshine-laws

Tennessee Public Notice issue — an important government transparency issue

Any battle to remove required government public notices from newspapers is an assault on government transparency. Compromising government transparency is a full-out assault on the citizens of Tennessee.

Government belongs to the governed, not the governing.

The actions of government should always be out in the open.

Whether it is the passage of a city or county budget, a change in zoning ordinances or a permit application for a mining operation near a residential neighborhood, citizens have every right to know what government is up to or is about to do.

Who holds government in check? Who protects the interests of citizens?

If our 237-year experiment has taught us anything about democracy, it has taught us government cannot be trusted to police itself. Public notices in newspapers are one of the ways that citizens can keep an eye on their local government.

Newspapers have a long and important legacy of helping citizens keep an eye on government. Newspapers are the place where citizens in communities throughout Tennessee look to find out not only what government is up to, but they also depend on local newspapers to publish bankruptcy information important to creditors and to property owners, foreclosures and even divorces and adoptions. Newspapers serve as a historical record and researchers now, and years in the future, will look through newspaper archives to preserve those histories. Many of those records are found in printed public notices.

The Internet has not replaced newspapers as the leading source of information for and about communities and it will not at anytime in the near future.

Taking required public notices out of newspapers and merely posting them on government controlled websites takes those records out of the hands of the public at-large. A large government website of public notices throughout the state will bury important information about a community and effectively conceal the actions of local governments.

Even if a large government website is searchable, a citizen would have to know exactly what they are searching for in order to be driven to the website and then they would have to know exactly what keywords to use in order to find the information they are looking for. That kind of public notice model is not in the public’s best interest.

However, with each edition, citizens buy their community newspapers to find out everything that is going on in their community. While they are reading the news from the previous evening’s county commission meeting, or checking to see what is on the school lunch menu, or looking through the obituaries, or scanning the help wanted ads, there they will be alerted about a permit application for a new landfill or a hike in the property tax rate. Putting the information in the location where citizens are accustomed to finding it and likely to find it, is the right thing to do for the citizens of Tennessee.

Research by the Tennessee Press Association has shown 45 percent of Tennessee households continue to bring newspapers into their homes. The public expects to find public notices in their community newspaper and that is exactly where the notices should stay and continue to be found.

After all, the very purpose of requiring government to place public notices is so that the notices can be public.

What could be more public than the local newspaper?

(Additional information regarding the importance of public notices published in newspapers can be found at: tnpress.com ). 

Jim Zachary is the director of the Tennessee Transparency Project (tntransparency.com), the editor of the Clayton News Daily and the Henry Daily Herald in metro-Atlanta and a multi-time winner of the Tennessee Press Association – University of Tennessee Meeman Award for editorial excellence. He is available for newsroom training and public speaking engagements and can be contacted at zacharyjim@gmail.com.

Transparency lawsuit targets DCS

The Tennessee Press Association has released this report by the Associated Press:

By ERIK SCHELZIG

Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Department of Children’s Service has been reporting to a federal court for more than a decade on how it is handling foster care, yet it faces no such scrutiny of its handling of children suffering from abuse or neglect.

The state reports that 120 children investigated by the Department of Children’s Services after reports of abuse or neglect died between 2009 and 2011. There were 31 more deaths during the first half of 2012, DCS says.

DCS refuses to divulge anything but bare details about the deaths, such as the child’s age, gender and home county. It won’t release what actions it took in the cases. DCS even keeps the names of the children who died secret.

The agency’s refusal to disclose its case records to the public is being challenged in court by a coalition of 12 news media organizations, led by The Tennessean newspaper. A hearing on the challenge is set for Tuesday.

A public records lawsuit by the coalition seeks to open the files on the children who died, arguing that “the public has a strong interest in knowing what actions DCS took — or failed to take — in order to protect them.” The group that filed the challenge includes The Associated Press and newspapers and broadcasters in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville. Commissioner Kate O’Day has said privacy concerns about the children are the motivation for keeping details about their cases secret. The confidentiality requirements are “not to protect DCS, they’re really to protect the families,” she told The Tennessean. Gov. Bill Haslam has said he agrees with the legal analysis by state attorneys that Tennessee isn’t required to release detailed information in the event of child deaths.

That stance is in contrast to other states, where judges, lawmakers and state officials have decided greater transparency improves child welfare agency performance or is required by public records laws.

O’Day and Haslam have declined to elaborate on the state’s privacy claim, citing the pending lawsuit. The deaths reported by DCS included infants, toddlers, grade-schoolers and teenagers, and the causes included bodily fractures or injuries, gunshot wounds, natural causes and drug exposure. The agency said it confirmed abuse or neglect in 47 cases, including a 10-month-old boy from Knox County who drowned in April after DCS closed its investigation. The DCS summary doesn’t answer if the abuse or neglect contributed to that death or if abuse and neglect had a role in any of the other deaths.

Advocates for abused and neglected children argue that state child welfare departments get more benefit than harm from greater transparency. ”It is critical for the public to be able to review information pertaining to abused and neglected children who die or almost do so,” said Noy Davis, a legal consultant for First Star, a Washington-based group that battles child abuse and neglect. ”The public access is necessary so that we can be assured that any systemic changes that need to be made to avoid the deaths of other children are in fact made,” Davis said in an email.

The DCS policy against disclosure predates the Haslam administration. In 2009, the department cited the privacy of surviving relatives in refusing to discuss its involvement in the case of a 15-year-old Dyersburg girl who accused her father of abuse and then was moved two doors away into foster care.

A week later, the father fatally shot the girl, her foster father and himself.

DCS has been under federal court oversight since 2001 after settling a class action lawsuit over its high number of children in foster care. The settlement limited the number of cases assigned to case workers, required better training and appointed a monitor to report on whether the state was making progress reducing the numbers of children living in institutions, placing siblings in the same foster home and many other measures. The federal monitoring doesn’t review DCS handling of cases where children it had investigated died. DCS is obliged to report such deaths to the General Assembly within 45 days. In September, DCS attorney Douglas Dimond acknowledged the department hadn’t been making the legislative reports.

In other states, there’s a trend toward greater transparency for child welfare agencies.

Kentucky, like Tennessee, had cited privacy in refusing to release records related to child deaths and near deaths. In 2011 it lost a two-year court battle over access to records waged by The Courier-Journal of Louisville, the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Todd County Standard. A judge ordered the state to release files about the fatal beating of 9-year-old Amy Dye by her adoptive brother, and they showed social workers had ignored reports the girl was being abused. The commissioner of Kentucky’s Department for Community Based Services resigned. The same judge last year ordered even more disclosure, telling the state the only information it could redact was the name of a child victim who was hurt but didn’t die.

Arkansas lawmakers in 2009 enacted a law requiring the public notice about the deaths children under state care, including the release of children’s names. The changes followed the deaths of four children in foster care.

In Florida, after 10-year-old Nubia Barahona’s partially decomposed body was found in the back in her adoptive father’s exterminator truck last year, the state Department of Children and Families released hundreds of pages of records about its interactions with the child and the family.

An investigation revealed that caseworkers missed the signs that Nubia was routinely abused. It was the biggest scandal to hit the agency since it was reorganized nearly a decade earlier in the aftermath of the Rilya Wilson case. That’s when officials found 5-year-old Rilya Wilson had been missing for more than a year before officials noticed — in part because a caseworker filed false reports saying the girl was fine. Rilya’s case led to greater transparency standards, and a state child death review team releases records and case histories in cases of child abuse and neglect.

A 2011 report last year by the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned of flawed methods to tally and analyze the deaths of children who have been maltreated and found the latest annual estimate of 1,770 such fatalities is likely too low at least in part because of confidentiality and privacy constraints.

The GAO report also noted that states receiving federal grants to improve their data collection systems are restricted from releasing records, except in instances of neglect and abuse that resulted in the death or near-death of a child.

___

Associated Press Writers Kelli Kennedy in Miami and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Ark. contributed to this report.

Transparency more than campaign pledge

One of the great ironies of politics is how most candidates in most elections pledge openness, transparency and accessibility during the course of a campaign. Despite those promises, from the courthouse to the statehouse public officials all across the state deliberate the public’s business in private, hide behind executive sessions, orchestrate voting blocs outside of meetings, stall open records requests and the Tennessee General Assembly even exempts itself from the same Open Meeting Act that is binding on local officials. Closed government is poor government regardless of political ideology or party. Voters should take note of all the campaign posturing about transparency in government and when the next General Assembly convenes remind the men and women we have elected of their promises. Tennessee’s Open Meetings Act is good, but not great. Citizens, the media and open government advocates should put pressure on representatives and senators to improve the language in open meetings legislation to define what it means for elected officials to “deliberate” the public’s business outside of an open public meeting. Citizens of Tennessee have every right to always have the expectation that public policy is only being deliberated in open public meetings. The citizens of Tennessee have every right to know not only what decision are reached by elected officials, but how they arrive at those decisions. In addition to the need for more precise language in the act itself, state legislators could prove their commitment to openness in government by enacting legislation that requires the General Assembly itself to be just as open as local government. All government, not just local government, belongs to the governed.